Where Will The Weight Savings Come From?

[regularguy]

Hello all,

So, broadly speaking, in the last few decades, road bikes have gotten lighter with advancements in carbon/resin technology, but heavier with aerodynamic shaping, disc brakes, wider wheels/tires, and maybe electronic shifting and more gears. Really nice steel road bikes ~40 years ago were 20 pounds, really nice carbon bikes ~10 years ago were maybe 15 pounds, but today most of them seem to be in the 16-18 pound range.

Is low weight just outweighed (ha) by these other factors and that's that?

Or, will weight start do drop again and where will the weight savings come from? Berd spokes? Lighter aero shaping? 1X?

[mgrl]

So it's not a reduction of weight in overall terms for "Road bikes", but disc brake bikes have definitely becoming lighter in the new generation as they've been designed around discs specifically and not just beefed up rim brake frames.

[Treptay]

You have already said the main parts/problems. The industry is now focusing more on aerodynamics and comfort. Weight is not really the main focus anymore. With the bikes like atheos, we will start to see some "outliers " start to appear, or basically evolving backwards. Removing the aerodynamic shapes and going back to round tubes will remove weight, and we will start to see more of the lightweight round tube bikes again marketed at the average weekend warrior, and aero race bikes for the more racy riders. To make bikes lighter, you need to remove material somewhere, and you can only remove so much before the bikes become too flexy and fragile. Adding more gears every year doesn't help either. Maybe a 10 speed ultralight groupset, that uses the cog and chain thickness of 12 speed, but removes a couple of gears to save weight? We will not see ridiculous savings, it will just not be physicaly possible with disc brakes.

[Lewn777]

No bikes are heavier because more tech = higher price = more profit.
Also some of the problem comes from the UCI having the arbitrary 6.8kg rule. Imagine how different bikes would look if they upped that to 9kg (super aero everything and high tech) or lowered it to 5kg,like an uber light like a hill climb bike.

Of course weight savings can be made by gradually improving fairly porky aero disk brake 8kg race bikes, but of course that will make the bike expensive and make even more money. Shimano for example are missing a trick, they use steel bolts on Dura-Ace, they could easily change those bolts and stuff to titanium or better yet aerospace grade aluminum and charge double for 'Dura-Ace plus' or something.

I see the mainstream industry heading down a bikes for dentists only direction, with most riders scratching their heads and horrified by the cost of anything pro level or even reasonably competitive amateur level. Of course those aero disk brake bikes will get down to a UCI minimum 6.8kg in due course, but they'll have price tag to match the 'development costs' and 'the cost the consumer can stand'. It's already bad enough with $10,000 bikes. Everyone greedily looking at the Apple sales model, people with money not willing to compromise on 'having the best', but forgetting it's their fitness and weight that really matters.

[TobinHatesYou]

I’d contend that most consumers don’t care about the weight of their $700-$1000-$1500-$2000 bicycle. Paint on the other hand…

Anyway my 56cm 2007 Scott CR1 Pro cost US$2700 and weighed 7.9kg with pedals/cages IIRC. Today a Canyon Ultimate CF SL Disc costs US$3300 and weighs the same.

In 2021 dollars, the CR1 Pro would be almost US$3600.

Top end bikes have never mattered to the average consumer, and no, they aren’t dentist bikes either.


Edit:
Here is a completely stock 47cm 2007 CR1 Pro weighing in at 17lbs 6oz aka 7.88kg w/o pedals or cages. Maybe mine was heavier than I remember.

[CAAD8FRED]

I’d contend that most consumers don’t care about the weight of their $700-$1000-$1500-$2000 bicycle. Paint on the other hand…

Anyway my 56cm 2007 Scott CR1 Pro cost US$2700 and weighed 7.9kg with pedals/cages IIRC. Today a Canyon Ultimate CF SL Disc costs US$3300 and weighs the same.

In 2021 dollars, the CR1 Pro would be almost US$3600.

Top end bikes have never mattered to the average consumer, and no, they aren’t dentist bikes either.


Edit:
Here is a completely stock 47cm 2007 CR1 Pro weighing in at 17lbs 6oz aka 7.88kg w/o pedals or cages. Maybe mine was heavier than I remember.

Most people buying sub 2K road bikes are probably just getting into the sport and will be amazed by anything that weighs a ton. A further point could be made that most people that buy 10K bikes are either dentists or seasoned riders and one cares about weight to try and fit in and the other cares about weight because his wife is emotionally detached from the marriage and weightweenie-ism is the only thing that currently brings him joy.

[ghostinthemachine]

Thankfully most of the pro teams seem to have realised that faster is not the same as lighter.
So hopefully they'll start going down that rabbit hole.
Eventually we will save so many aero and frictional watts the bike will power itself!

[usr]

Currently weight saving seems to come from reducing safety margins. This is nothing new at all and back in the twentieth UCI even imposed the 6.8 to end the one-upmanship in risk-taking. But with aero and disc in the picture, it seems to be back. Just look at all the recalls. I certainly don't expect UCI to go to 7.2 or something like that, but the money-drain part of the hobby will suffer when marketing does not put weight in the focus but aero, because unlike weight, aero is impossible you quantify for Joe Hobbyist.

The future will either bring increasingly similar bikes (there's only one optimal shape) or an endless succession of piecemeal UCI rule relaxations where each time the manufacturer who moves first gets the merit of becoming the X in "all the new bikes look like X" for a while. Being on the paying side (playing side) of a market like that will be much less attractive than als old age WWism.

[DHG01]

Disc frames are becoming very light - as Aetheos proves; even adding aero features, they can be light. Wheels seem pretty light also - being a tubular user, I admit you can now get a an equally light clincher/tyre combo.

I would say weight savings should come from grupo sets (Red's 1850 ? grams is a long way ahead). There also seems to be something with the integrated stem/bar and hidden cables that seems to be adding ~150 grams.

As mentioned before, UCI dropping limit below the 6.8 kg would also help reduce bike weights.

[BigBoyND]

I agree that SL7/Aethos and Rapide wheels pretty much demonstrate that light weights are possible for frames and wheels.

I disagree about integrated cockpits though. A 120g stem and 220g aero-shaped bar is pretty light for non-exotic parts. 350g seems to be the going rate for integrated sets these days, so that's comparable. Then there is Bontrager with an integrated 280g bar. That is on par with exotic bar+stem combos.

Comparing rim and disc R9100 groupsets, there's a 200g penalty for disc. But Ekar calipers, 3T/Red cassettes, and Galfer rotors demonstrate that a 200g reduction should be possible to get back to rim brake levels.

I think there are also many opportunities with small parts. Headset compression, topcap, Ti/AL bolts, seat clamps, bar tape, BB, etc. It's amazing how much weight can be saved. It's only a few grams grams each but quickly adds up because there are so many. That's pretty much how I'm on track for 6.8-6.9kg including PM/pedals with 58cm Venge, 1565g wheels, and no exotic parts. If I was starting with a more common 54cm or 56cm SL7 and 1400g Rapides, it would be well below the legal limit and still be very much aero.

[AJS914]

Is low weight just outweighed (ha) by these other factors and that's that?

Take the whole system weight (rider, gear, bike) - but subract 2 pounds in either direction and model the performance difference. There is very little difference. It's 1-2 watts.

https://www.gribble.org/cycling/power_v ... 200&v2p=22

Change the bike weight to 2 pounds heavier. It costs 1.4 watts. It's just not a big deal.

[openwheelracing]

I see industry already moved the goal post by pushing disc brakes only. Disc groupsets and wheels are two heavier components at any given price. Since road bike is all about wheels, that's a big bummer. Definitely industry going backwards to create room for improvement and higher profit. New disc group sets certainly seem unnecessarily heavy for no reason considering lighter components of last generations don't have functionality or safety concerns.

Aethos is example of how light manufacturers can push the envelope. At a huge price premium of course. However I don't think I would be comfortable riding paper thin carbon, especially since Aethos is trying to achieve rim brake feel with modern disc brake.

[Butcher]

Until UCI changes, there is no reason for any bike company to target bikes at a lower weight. Look at the boutique part companies. They can really bring down the weight. Look what Specialized did with the Aethos. They certainly can do that type of build on all of their frames and I certainly believe they will.

If you do not think weight is an issue, then why to they all throw away they bottles at the last hill? Why are the climbers so thin? Weight does matter so 2lbs is still 2lbs.

[Kayrehn]

Went from a 4.7kg rim bike to 5.2kg disc bike that has boutique parts all over - the 500g weight gain from moving to discs can't be reduced imo.

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